


Spider-Man to the rescue

by Nanerich



Series: Tales from the Baby Science Bros [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Sort of at least, Spider-Man To The Rescue, Things Go Wrong, at first, harley's not that good at decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24827989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanerich/pseuds/Nanerich
Summary: Harley messes up, big time and asks Peter to help him out of it. Keeping it from Tony seems like a good idea, until he comes to his own conclusions.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Harley Keener/Peter Parker
Series: Tales from the Baby Science Bros [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795858
Comments: 4
Kudos: 123





	Spider-Man to the rescue

Peter was hanging off the ceiling, deep in the throws of the newest Superman comic, when his ringing phone ripped him out of it. An unknown number. Huh.

“Hello, who's there?”

“Uhm, so don't freak out”, Harley mumbled.

“That's a great start”, Peter groaned and rolled his eyes. “What happened?”

“So”, Harley cleared his throat. “I'm in jail.”

“Uhm, what now?” Peter must have had misheard him...

“Yeah, so that robot I've been working on lately?”

“What is with it?”

“Well, it's supposed to fly, right?”

Oh, Peter just had the tiniest clue where this might be heading. “Continue...”

“I took it to Madison Square Park for a test flight”, he continued his explanations. “But instead of flying it kinda, maybe might have...”

“Out with it.”

“It maybe blew up a teensy-weensy bit.”

“Of course it did.” The world's mightiest eye roll wasn't enough to express Peter's exasperation. “And now they locked you up?”

“Yeah, listen, I need to wrap this up”, Harley pressed on, “got my one phone call and I need to hang up. So can you please come to the 24th precinct and get me?”

“You used your one phone call to call a broke student, instead of the billionaire, who could actually afford your bail?”

“Tony can't know about this!”, he hissed. _“No, I'm almost done, give me a moment, please sir!_ Please, I just need someone to come and pick me up, and Tony'll let me sit in here forever.”

“He wouldn't be wrong to do that, though”, Peter shot back. “You blew up a park, you might just deserve this.”

“What? You can't be serious! Please, come get me!”

“Nope, hanging up now”, Peter giggled. “Byeeeee!”

“What? No, no, no, no, don't you dare...”

With a click, Peter hung up. And, as much as he would have liked to, he couldn't suppress the laughter. This was so typical. Well, looks like Peter was going out today after all. But just plain Peter Parker, who was also a minor, wasn't gonna get Harley out.

But there might just be someone who could...

* * *

“Excuse me, Ma'am”, he smiled at the officer at the front desk.

“Yes, how can I...” At the sight of Spider-Man, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Deciding to be unperturbed by the almost starstruckness, he continued. “Earlier there was somebody who was taken in for causing an explosion in Madison Square Park and I'd like to take him along.”

“Uhm, yeah.” Without looking away from Peter, she waved for another uniformed officer, who stared at him somewhat similarly. “Take him to the holding cell.”

“Right. So, uh, who you pickin' up? I thought we got nobody of supes-interest in.”

“I'm not here for a villain”, Peter clarified, “he's an affiliate to Stark Industries and I'm just here to pick him up before the idiot got himself into some more serious trouble.”

“That's nice of you”, the officer nodded appreciatively and, after turning one corner, they found themselves in front of the holding cells. “So, which one's the idiot you're here to pick up?”

“That's him”, Peter pointed at Harley.

“Yes, that's me, I'm the idiot!”, he grinned and jumped up towards the gate. “I would very much like to be rescued by Spider-Man; after my long hard time of being in captivity, I'd like to swoon into my saviour's arms.”

Peter just looked up at the officer. “You know what, maybe do keep him. There are plenty of talented engineers in this city, the Avengers aren't  _that_ desperate”, he added with a pointed look directed at Harley, who's face dropped.

“Well, neither am I”, he shot back, after he got control over his facial expressions again and leaned against the wall. Knowing that Peter would never let him sit in jail, he just shot Peter that damn smug smirk.

“Ugh, fine”, he groaned. “Please release that idiot into my custody.”

“Sure thing.”

* * *

“You do know that Tony's gonna find out about that eventually, right?”, Peter remarked, as he came up from behind the dumpster where he had changed back into his civilian clothes. “He probably already knows.”

“I'm so fucked”, Harley groaned and slumped down on the ground.

“Yes, you are”, Peter grinned and held his hand out to Harley. “Wanna go through it right now, or hide out at my place?”

“Depends.” He let Peter pull him up and shot him a skew smile. “Do I have my saviour by my side?”

“What's in it for me?”

“How ‘bout all the pizza you can possibly eat?”

“Damn you, Keener”, he grumbled, but couldn't bite the grin down. “You got yourself a deal.”

* * *

“Heya boys, been out?”, Tony grinned, when the two walked into the common room. No, he not just grinned, that smug smirk was very suggestive. He definitely knew what just happened to Harley.

“Yeah.”

“Right then. Lab?”

“Sounds good to me.”

* * *

“So, I guess you know”, Peter remarked, when he and Tony were by themselves.

“Of course I do”, the man chuckled, without even looking at Peter. “I probably knew before you did.”

“Figured”, Peter shrugged. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“Because you two idiots have to figure out your feelings yourself.”

“Wait, what?” Peter looked up at his mentor with wide eyes.

“Of course”, Tony continued, not really getting what had Peter so freaked out. “If I told you that Harley was just as into you as you are into him, neither would have believed me. But seems like you had a nice date, huh?” Only now Tony looked up and shot Peter a fairly suggestive smile, and even managed not to look cheesy doing so.

Not sure what to say, Peter just stared at his mentor, eyes wide and jaw on the ground.

“What has you so shocked now?”

“What’s going on?”, Harley asked as he walked back in, clearly feeling the weird tension as he looked from Tony to Peter.

“Good question; Peter was just about to ‘fess up.”

“Tony knows”, Peter blurted out, not sure what else to say.

“What?” Harley’s face fell along with all the colour draining. “You told him?”

“I didn’t, he figured it out!” Tony thinking they were on a date was easier to deal with in the long run than him knowing about Harley being locked up and involving Spider-Man, so Peter would stick with this story for the time being; at least until they figured out what to do about it. “Harley and me were on a date.”

And the chaos was complete. Harley looked like he would never be able to collect his features again as he just silently stared at Peter. “Sorry, Harley. Tony figured out that we were out together this afternoon.”

“Oh.” Slowly but surely Harley seemed to catch on to what happened. “Uhm yeah. We were. On a date. Me and Peter. Romantically…”

“Yeah, alright, I think he got it”, Peter interrupted and, a deep breath later, turned back to Tony.

“So, are you two dating?”

“Uhm…” Peter just locked eyes with Harley, who similarly wide-eyed and unsure looked back.

“Right. Maybe I should leave the two of you to figure this out without me making a bigger mess of things”, Tony suggested, put his screwdriver down and made for the door. “No making out in my lab!”, he made clear and, before Peter or Harley could react, he disappeared.

“Peter. What. The. Fuck?”, Harley cried out the moment they were alone.

He quickly recapped his conversation with Tony, before defending himself: “so I could have either told him the truth about you being arrested or I tell him we’re dating.”

“So, to keep me out of trouble, you put yourself into the mix?” He looked almost touched.

“Well”, he shrugged, blushing some more, “figured that us being on a date was easier to deal with than Tony freaking out over your jail time.”

“Ok, first of all I owe you majorly. Where does that put us though? Are we a thing now?”

“I don’t know…”, Peter shrugged. “I mean, you're cute and all, but I never considered... you know...” How the fuck was Peter to say how he had never thought of Harley in a romantic way without it sounding like he thought Harley to be unattractive or something?

Fortunately, he didn't have to. “Yeah, same here. Where do we go from here, though?”

“Well, there are three possible outcomes: the date went well, the date went bad or the date was sort of neutral. First sees us being a thing, second sees us not liking us any more and third has us seeing us more as friends than a couple”, Peter summarized.

“Well put”, Harley nodded appreciatively. “Choice is yours, though. You're saving my ass here, so anything you're comfortable with is cool for me.”

“Right.”

Question was, what was Peter comfortable with? Saying that the date was disastrous was out; there was absolutely no need whatsoever for him and Harley to fake an argument. It would probably be easiest for them to just go back to normal, say they didn't like each other _that way_ and continue as if nothing ever happened. However...

“I gotta admit, I'm kinda curious as to what it would be like if we went out.”

“Oh, thank god”, Harley sighed, “I already thought I was weird for thinking that.” He grinned over and winked at Peter. “So, whatcha say, Spidey, fancy going out with me?”

“I just might”, Peter grinned back. Winking wasn't exactly his strong suit, so, in a momentary lapse of judgement, he fingergunned at Harley.

“Seriously?”

“Hey, if you want to date Spider-Man, you gotta take Peter as well”, he shrugged back.

“You know”, Harley smiled after pondering a bit over it, blushing ever so slightly, “I'd rather date Peter than Spidey.”


End file.
